Tiger
The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest cat species, most recognizable for its pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with a lighter underside. The species is classified in the genus Panthera with the lion, leopard, jaguar, and in some guides, the snow leopard. It is an apex predator, primarily preying on ungulates such as deer and bovids. It is territorial and generally a solitary but social predator, often requiring large contiguous areas of habitat that support its prey requirements. This, coupled with the fact that it is indigenous to some of the more densely populated places on Earth, has caused significant conflicts with humans. The tiger is among the most recognizable and popular of the world's charismatic megafauna. It featured prominently in ancient mythology and folklore and continues to be depicted in modern films and literature, appearing on many flags, coats of arms and as mascots for sporting teams. The tiger is the national animal of India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and South Korea. Tiger in Atlantis A tiger resided in the zoo of Hanover, Atlantis in the 1750s. When Victor Radcliff saw this tiger, he thought it looked very angry as it prowled its too-small cage and lashed its tail.Opening Atlantis, p. 329. Tiger in Crosstime Traffic By 2096 in the home timeline, tigers had gone extinct in the wild, but still lived on in zoos, such as the one in San Diego.''Curious Notions'', p. 263. Tiger in ''Curious Notions'' Tigers had not yet been wholly exterminated from the wilds of an alternate known to Crosstime Traffic as "3477."Ibid. Tiger in Darkness Tigers were among the distinctive fauna of the northern continent of Siaulia. Tiger in "None So Blind" The tiger was one of the strange animals of the southern continent. Antti, a savant on the Toivo expedition, was mauled to death by a tiger, which the other Mussalmians described as looking like a very large tabby cat. Tiger in The Opening of the World When Hamnet Thyssen's expedition crossed the Gap in the Glacier to the northern lands, they saw a large cat that resembled a lion or a sabertooth, except that it was striped. This kind of cat was unknown in the Raumsdalian Empire or the Bizogot lands. The Rulers referred to this cat as a tiger. Tiger in The War That Came Early Japanese soldiers serving in the wilderness regions of the North Asian mainland in the 1930s, regularly became acquainted with and accustomed to a wide variety of wildlife which did not exist on the Home Islands, including wolves, foxes, and owls. Soldiers typically came to take these animals for granted after short acquaintance. However, when Japan invaded the Soviet Union in 1939, its soldiers encountered the Siberian Tiger. They found this animal extraordinarily intimidating, and were more afraid of the tiger's roar than they were of gunfire (describing the roar as causing "even gunfire . . . to pause for a moment"). They credited this to the fact that the firearm was a recent invention, only a few centuries old, so that it was unfamiliar to ancestral memory, whereas a human instinctively knew that the sound of a tiger's roar indicated serious danger. Of course, the Siberian tigers were far from invincible, and many were killed in the crossfire of the Second Russo-Japanese War. Furthermore, a dead tiger yielded valuable trophies: The internal organs of tigers could be sold for a high price to both Japanese and Chinese apothecaries, the gallbladder being especially sought after. A tiger's fur coat was also valuable. During a skirmish in the late spring of 1939, Hideki Fujita had the opportunity to kill a tiger and claim its trophies. He did not do so because the tiger was beautiful and, on the extreme ugliness of a battlefield, it seemed an outrage to destroy a thing of beauty, especially one which had nothing to do with mankind's penchant for warfare. See also *Smilodon, the so-called "saber-tooth tiger." References Category:Felids Category:Atlantis Category:Crosstime Traffic Category:Curious Notions Category:Derlavaian Fauna Category:None So Blind Category:The Opening of the World Category:The War That Came Early